TK has a coloring party!

Recently we had a Friday that the elementary school kids didn’t have to go to school (some random school improvement day). I decided we were going to have a “TK Colorfest”! Ashleigh and I found some coloring sheets on the internet for the different age levels of the kids. Some of the kids and Ashleigh and Blythe brought out their coloring books, and Blythe and I brought out colored pencils, crayons, felt pens, and The’Bug even brought out her gel pens to share! We set the classroom tables up all together, family style.

In the past I have always felt that coloring sheets weren’t much more than a time fill, and an excuse to practice some fine motor skills. Beyond that, I felt, coloring sheets were pretty useless, if not even detrimental to the kids creativity. You know, the whole “stay in the lines vs. spontaneous creativity” mentality. However, you may have noticed that there is a hot new trend going on out there; “Therapeutic Coloring Books for adults”. I have fallen in love with the artwork created for these books. I have even bought a couple of them!

I’m not sure how therapeutic they are, ha ha. Ashleigh and Blythe were really stressing out, trying to pick colors for their pages. I am the same way. I have had one of these books for over a year haven’t been able to break down and actually lay a colored pencil to paper. I’m too afraid I am going to make a wrong color choice, change my mind, or make some kind of mistake that is irreversible. I finally took a brave step and started coloring one of my pages on the day of our TK Colorfest!

We included the whole TK family, from youngest to oldest.

All levels of expertise were celebrated!

As Ashleigh was working on her masterpiece, so focused and intent, suddenly she let out a scream! The roof above our classroom isn’t exactly poddy-trained yet, and has spontaneous, random, infrequent, unpredictable leakages. This time it had an accident right over her shoulder and on her coloring paper! Eeek! (No coloring paper was permanently harmed during this episode.)

The ‘Bug and I went straight for the horsey pictures first!

Amazing TK Talent abounds!

Some of us are not constrained by the lines, even when they are there! (And that was okay today!)

We even had a special guest join us for our TK Colorfest. Her name is Samantha, and she is The ‘Bugs Therapeutic Horseback Riding teacher.

Samantha brought her dog, “Mater”. He has promise of becoming a therapy dog. He is so calm and well-mannered, all of the kids loved him and even our most dog-fearing children were drawn to him!

Aside from the high-stress of color choosing (haha), I would have to say that the whole “TK Colorfest” was a success. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. And we have some amazing talent in my little TK family!

And my favorite one of the day…

Colored by a 5 year old boy. He worked for over an hour on it before lunch, took a break and then asked if he could finish it after lunch. While I was sitting next to him, coloring my picture, he confided in me “This is for my Mommy! It’s a surprise! I colored it for her because she likes beautiful things. Do you think this is beautiful? I am going to make her close her eyes and hold out her hands and then I will put it in her hands, and surprise her! She will be so happy!” Yes, son, this is so beautiful, on so many levels…

3 Thoughts on “TK has a coloring party!”

I absolutely love this blog. Who doesn’t like to color (all ages). I had forgotten how much fun it is to color things until I had kids again and it’s joyful to see what they can do with it. These templates are so much fun and the kids had a blast. I was very blessed in having two very well colored and thoughtful coloring presented to me with lots of love. I am a very lucky mommy. And yes he did make me close my eyes and put my hands out and presented it to me just as he told you he would. Made me tear up. (Of course the story behind it made it all that much better). Both these kids had such a great time coloring. The detailed work on the templates made them slow down and use lots of color which I really enjoyed. Thanks for that great idea!!!